Universal Numbers

After the stop-start of the last three years, Lazuli have quietly unveiled their 11th studio album, simply called 11. Vocalist, instrumentalist and composer Dominique Leonetti reveals why the French group are buzzing about their new release but choosing to remain fiercely independent, and how it felt to finally play on the same stage as their musical heroes.

- Alison Reijman

Abandoning a major European tour three years ago due to Covid, Lazuli retreated to their base in southern France, waiting for the world to re-open. During this protracted impasse, Dominique Leonetti wrote 11, a deeply personal collection of songs that appeared almost without fanfare earlier this year. In an ideal music cosmos, the stars would have aligned, enabling the French proggers to release 11, their 11th album comprising 11 songs, on November 11, 2022 (11 x 2). Sadly, due to global production delays, the universal numbers didn't add up this time.

"It was an unpleasant surprise for us a little frustrating, it is true. But the album arrived in the new year and that was perfect," declares Leonetti, the band's vocalist, instrumentalist and composer.

That record crystallises Leonetti's personal feelings after the band suffered major setbacks in 2020. It began not long after the release of their ninth album, Le Fantastique Envol De Dieter Böhm, when they were forced to halt their scheduled European tour after just two British dates as Covid struck. They were heading north to fulfil a dream of playing Liverpool's Cavern Club when news arrived that the French border was closing so they had little choice but to return home without performing at the venue associated with their musical heroes, The Beatles.

Then Gédéric Byar, their charismatic, dreadlocked guitarist, departed. However, later that year, they welcomed new guitarist Arnaud Beyney - friend of keyboards and French horn player, Romain Thorel - and in 2021, the stripped-down Dénudé came out.

"I wrote the words during the lockdown, like a need to escape," Leonetti reflects of 11. "When the world resumed its course, I found the courage to put them to music, so the songs came to life."